A Test Group of One

I started the Foundations Black Box Software Testing class earlier this week and we are now into lesson two of six. I thought the discussion question was interesting so I'd like to share it along with my response.

Question:

[P]lease describe the role of the test group (services and responsibilities) in your organization. How do you think this mix differs from what you think of as the "typical" test group? How would you change this?

Answer:
Up until a month ago I was the sole tester in small software company (our entire company was about 11 people). Since then we've been purchased by a large multinational company with over 15,000 people world-wide and I’m still not quite sure what exact group I belong to, what my overall responsibilities are so I’ll focus my answer on the company prior to this acquisition.

Since our company was small so was our technical team, which consisted of 3 full time developers and me. For a few years we also had a CTO who acted as a development manager and occasionally for big projects we’d hire contractors. Like others on our technical team I essentially had two roles in the company: first as a tester of our products and secondly as a jack of all trades, used where-ever I’m needed. My responsibilities and services include: